Digital Dark Age: What now?

Two weeks ago I launched my third year major project ‘Digital Dark Age’ – a playable concept album created in Unreal Engine. Since then I’ve been working to compile all the aspects of the projects production into an archive for the submission deadline on the 21st April but I wanted to write a quick post to outline a few thoughts from the launch event and some points for development in the future.

Setting up for the launch at the Eagle Inn

Firstly, I had underestimated just how much work was necessary to complete everything I had in mind, but conversely I ended up creating more content than I had initially planned! My original proposal and concept for the level seemed ambitious but achievable, and this has remained true throughout the projects duration however there were many aspects of DDA’s production that I spent a lot longer on than intended. This included:

A fellow Futureworks student testing out Digital Dark Age. The fire extinguishers were thankfully not necessary.

The amount of content I had created didn’t really hit home until I started going through all the project’s folders but hopefully it will form a comprehensive archive that really showcases the work I’ve put into Digital Dark Age. So what now? The day after the launch event I was quite useless, tired and just needed a bit of a break mentally from the project but I’m very pleased with how it went. A number of folks came and tried the level and I got some fantastic feedback from people which has definitely inspired me to continue development of the level in the future.

After I’ve got my assignment all finished and handed in I’m going to focus on a few aspects of the level I know I want to develop:

– Optimising the level so it plays on less powerful computers
– Adding more interactive props at each point in the level
– Work on the overall audio mix and output volume
– Including additional vox-pops and audio commentary
– Adding main menu options for controlling graphics / audio settings
– Fixing a number of small bugs in the level’s mechanics

I feel that there is significant scope for Digital Dark Age, both as a learning project for me and an interactive learning environment focussing on the issues of digital preservation, sustainability and our digital heritage. I’d like to thank everyone that came down to the launch event and that’s offered feedback and thoughts after playing the level, both in person and online. I’ll be posting a final project overview style blog post close to my deadline in a couple of weeks. In the meantime feel free to download Digital Dark Age v.1.0 HERE (Windows only at the moment I’m afraid!) and have a listen to the soundtrack.